Farrah Rochon - Delectable Desire

This was definitely heaven.

Carter walked—no, more like glided—across the floor. Dark Chocolate held out the half-eaten strawberry to him.

As he leaned forward to bite it, the oven’s timer went off.

Ding. Ding. Ding.

Wait. That wasn’t the oven. It was his phone.

“Nooooo,” Carter growled.

His eyes popped open. Just as he’d feared, he was lying in his bed, twisted up in the sheets. He closed his eyes, but it was too late. The dream was gone.

Ding. Ding. Ding.

“Dammit.” He reached over and grabbed the phone. “Hello,” he bit out.

“Carter, where are you? You were supposed to be here an hour ago.”

It was his cousin Belinda. Great. If the incredible dream he’d been in the midst of hadn’t already rushed out of his head, it sure as hell would be gone now. Carter peered at the clock on his nightstand. He’d slept right through his alarm.

“Carter, are you still there?”

“I’m here,” he said, yawning and stretching.

“Grandma Lillian wants to meet with us. You need to get over here now.”

“I’m on my way.” He disconnected the call and closed his eyes again, hoping against hope that Dark Chocolate and her ripe, juicy strawberry would reappear, but she wasn’t there. Instead, he saw his grandmother frowning at him. That instantly iced his smoking-hot dream. And lit a fire under his ass.

Carter hopped out of bed. He grabbed a quick shower, making sure he scrubbed away remnants of the previous night’s hard partying.

Last night had been epic, especially for the middle of the week. He’d complained about having to fly solo now that his best friend and fellow baker at Lillian’s, Malik, had gone and gotten himself hooked up with a woman—his cousin Belinda of all people—but Carter was no longer complaining. Not having Malik around meant more women for him, and he’d had no problems collecting phone numbers last night. He had four new ones stored in his cell. Now he just needed to remember which number went with which girl. He knew he should have snapped their pictures last night.

Clean and dressed in slacks and a pressed polo shirt, Carter snatched a banana from the bowl on his kitchen counter as he made his way out of his condo. He sank into the soft leather bucket seat of his Basalt Black Metallic Porsche Panamera—a little something he’d bought himself for his thirtieth birthday—and swiftly made his way through the tree-lined streets of Glenville Heights. He sailed past the Drayson family’s gated estate on his way to the Kennedy Expressway. A half hour later, Carter pulled into the garage just off North Michigan Avenue, steps away from the bakery.

His grandparents had been lucky to snatch up this prime real estate on Chicago’s famed Magnificent Mile. In fact, they owned the entire building. Various businesses leased the offices on the floors above, but the bottom floor was reserved for Lillian’s. Named after his grandmother, Lillian Reynolds-Drayson, who’d first ensnared the taste buds of Chicagoans while working at a local cafeteria, the bakery had a loyal customer base that couldn’t get enough of Lillian’s sweet treats.

Carter always felt a measure of pride when he thought about how his young, widowed grandmother had made a way for herself and her son, before his grandfather, Henry Drayson, had swept her off her feet. The story of the first time they’d met, and the early days of the bakery, was a staple around the holidays.

Carter entered through the back door. On one side of the hallway was the massive kitchen, which took up a majority of the first floor. The other side housed several offices that were used to conduct bakery business and a storage room for the extra bakeware and packaging materials. The front area comprised the showroom, which faced Michigan Avenue.

As he walked up the hallway, Carter strolled past framed photographs of Lillian’s throughout the years, starting with his grandmother holding Uncle Dwight in her arms in front of the modest first storefront on Chicago’s South Side, and ending with the family picture they took outside the Michigan Avenue store when Lillian’s was featured in a local magazine last year. The rich marble facade of this location was a far cry from the little nondescript building where Lillian’s had first gotten its start.

“Carter.”

Carter stopped and turned at the sound of his father’s voice.

“What’s up?” Carter asked.

Devon Drayson did not look as if he was in the mood for exchanging idle chitchat. “Why are you just getting here?” he asked.

“Had a long night,” Carter answered with a grin. “Believe me, it was worth walking in an hour late.”

“An hour and a half,” his father corrected him. “Carter, when are you going to start taking your work seriously?”

His spine straightened in protest. “I do take my work seriously. Do you know how many people come to Lillian’s specifically requesting that I design their cakes? My work brings in more business than anyone else around here.”

“I’m not discounting your talent, just your work ethic. You should have been here to open the bakery early this morning, not strolling in hours late as if you don’t have a care in the world.”

This from the king of the carefree lifestyle. His father had perfected bachelorhood, never even coming close to marrying. Yet he had the nerve to talk about how Carter lived his life?

“I know what it’s like to be young and single, but there comes a time when you have to think about the long-term, Carter.” His father took a step closer and lowered his voice. “You know that your grandparents will soon let go of the reins of this business. Now, do you want a piece of it?”

Carter was tempted to say no, but that would only cause him more grief. The truth was, he’d been questioning a lot lately whether he still wanted to be a part of the family business.

He had never felt as if he was as much a part of Lillian’s as his cousins were, and he placed much of the blame squarely on the shoulders of the man standing before him. After all, it was his father’s fault that Carter was the only illegitimate grandchild. As the only bastard of the bunch, Carter had always felt as if he had to work extra hard to prove that he belonged.

His grandparents had never made him feel like an outsider, but Carter knew they didn’t approve of his father’s perpetual bachelorhood. The fact that his father had never married Carter’s mother had been the subject of many disagreements over the years.

But that was his father’s issue. Carter had nothing to do with that. He was a part of the bakery’s legacy, too, dammit.

“I have as much stake in Lillian’s as the others do,” Carter said.

“Then start acting like it,” his father demanded. “You need to show everyone in this family that you are committed to this business.”

“Maybe the family needs to show that they’re committed to me,” he countered, letting the frustration he normally hid behind a carefree smile rise to the surface. “I didn’t have the advantage of growing up on the great Drayson Estate the way Belinda and Drake did. I wasn’t there every Sunday afternoon like Monica and Shari. Yet I put just as much time into Lillian’s as they do. No, I put in more. I bust my ass for this business. So, tell me, Dad, does the family value my input? Does everyone here realize just what I bring to the table?”

“Don’t get full of yourself, Carter. You may be a good baker, but there are others out there. Just because you have Drayson blood running through your veins doesn’t mean you get an automatic pass. You need to straighten up, or you’re going to find yourself cut out of this business.”

With that his father turned and went back into the sales office.